In modern times, there’s a camera on almost everything, from drones to phones. But as Bonnie Koopmans reports, there’s still demand for scientific illustrations.
Human understanding of natural history has always been passed on through art. From rock paintings to digital 3D models, illustration allows us to share knowledge and experiences of our environment. But if you ask about scientific illustration, people will most likely turn to scientific illustration works from the 18th to 20th centuries – by artists like John and Elizabeth Gould, or John James Audubon – who popularised the art of science as a way of advancing and communicating Western discoveries and methods of categorising nature.
The art of observation, which stands hand-in-hand with the careful brushstrokes of a scientific illustrator has, for centuries, not only assisted in the scientific descriptions of species, but has revealed the stunning colours of birds from distant lands, the seemingly-impossible life cycles of insects, and newly described plant species to a wider audience.
Before photography, careful observation and the ability to draw and paint accurately was the primary method of visual documentation. What many people don’t realise is that scientific illustration is a field that, even today, continues to flourish. It has evolved to embrace modern technology, but still adheres to key values of accuracy, careful observation and science communication.
An inauspicious start
Whilst I was studying the Bachelor of Natural History Illustration at the University of Newcastle (sadly now-defunct), most people seemed to grasp the idea when I referred to it as ‘scientific illustration’, but there was often a certain confusion that this was ‘still’ a job.
“What do you hope that might lead to?” is a question feared by any student, especially one visual arts-related, and in my final year in 2019, I had the opportunity to meet a number of people in the field – many of whom had been working as scientific illustrators for decades. Upon hearing I was specifically interested in entomological illustration, I was met with the comment that ‘Entomological illustration is basically dead, now that photo stacking exists’.
This was incredibly disheartening to hear as a near-graduate not even out in the field! Whilst not entirely true, I understand what they meant to a certain extent: photography has overtaken illustration in practicality, accuracy and speed for some subjects – and insect specimens, being small, intricate and immobile subjects, are a perfect example of something that can be photographed very well, especially with the correct equipment and processing software.
The focus of scientific illustration outcomes have, somewhat, shifted to what can’t be photographed well. That includes anything extremely small, such as nanoparticles, or anything extinct, with dinosaurs being a fan favourite. Internal structures, also, can be challenging to photograph, and the reason why medical illustration is particularly in demand. Even for subjects that can be reasonably easily photographed, the use of illustrations is preferable if it will ensure consistency between subjects and emphasise important elements.
Take bird field guides, for example: photographic guides exist, but an illustrated guide can clearly emphasise small differences between species by drawing the birds in similar postures and with consistent and even lighting, and removing the complicating factors photographs contend with, such as distortion and visual clutter from background elements like leaves.
Back to the 80s
Scientific illustration may have been around for hundreds of years, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the same job it once was. Like so much of science, new innovations have driven scientific illustrators to new heights.
Diversifying from pencil, pen and paint to the digital realm, the wide adoption of computers in the ‘80s greatly expanded the ways in which illustration could be undertaken. Anne Hastings, former scientific illustrator of the Australian National Insect Collection, experienced the change firsthand.
In her early days in the role, she found producing meticulous pen-and-ink insect illustrations both satisfying and challenging, however, as time passed, the opportunity to try new digital techniques became ever more appealing. As these things often happen, I first met Hastings through something like six degrees of separation, as a string of people figured a freshly-graduated illustrator like myself would benefit from the experience of one who had once walked the same path.
Over the span of her 35-year career at the insect collection, Hastings looks back on the experience as “an exciting time to be an illustrator”. She recalls the technological procession of equipment available to her.
First were the traditional tools: Rotring pen, ink, microscope – all still widely used and loved today! Hastings often used a camera lucida attached to the microscope: a somewhat niche piece of equipment which feels like a small form of magic.
Looking through a binocular microscope with a camera lucida attached, one eye sees the specimen on the microscope stage, and the other is directed by a series of mirrors to look at the space next to the microscope, where paper can be placed. In this way, the illustrator can see their ghostly hand and pencil superimposed over the specimen, allowing it to be traced onto the page directly.
The camera lucida has been somewhat superseded by small camera units attached to the microscope, allowing images to be captured and for multiple people to observe and discuss features through a screen. That being said, I still jump at any chance to use a camera lucida – they’re wonderfully handy for taking quick sketches and visual notes of specimens, and, honestly, I just think they’re fun.
The first new tool of Hastings’s technological journey was the process camera – a dishwasher-sized camera that specialised in preparing images for print reproduction. Before the process camera, Hastings spent countless hours meticulously stippling. The miraculous camera used a screen to convert a tonal graphite drawing into a halftone image – speckled gradient patterns, like what’s used in newspaper printing – emulating and fast-tracking the stippled style.
A digital revolution
One of the most exciting advancements for Hastings was the introduction of digital illustration, allowing her to move beyond the standardised black and white inkwork of taxonomic illustration. Plates of line drawings intended for publication – often painstakingly cut out and arranged by hand – could instead be created and arranged digitally, with the first version of what we now know as Adobe Photoshop released in 1987.
Around the same time, vector illustration also became possible. In this new file format, pictures are not made from a grid of coloured square pixels. Instead, mathematical formulas define the curves of lines to create infinitely scalable illustrations. Thrillingly, this new digital format also introduced colour into Hastings’s work, as experimentation could be rapidly undertaken – a diagram of a beetle rendered in bright purple could easily be recoloured if it was deemed too bold.
Personally, decades on, I sometimes encounter a perception that digital art is somehow easier than traditional mediums, as the computer ‘does it for you’. Whilst working digitally makes some specific techniques easier or faster, I can assure you, the illustrator is still making all the brushstrokes!
Whilst this method of drawing began with a mouse, the introduction of the pressure-sensitive drawing tablet and stylus allowed a more natural method of drawing digitally, especially with the inclusion of pressure sensitivity (often linked to digital brush size or opacity) and tilt (linked to brush shape). These are typically attached to a computer, but as computing devices have become smaller and more lightweight, portable tablets now mean digital illustration can be done anywhere, including in the field.
Art created digitally is becoming a widely accepted medium in scientific illustration. Notably, acceptance is growing in botanical art, which has long placed special emphasis on adhering to and upholding traditional painting methods. Just in the last few years I have noticed an increase in prestigious botanical art awards accepting digitally created entries.
Much like the widespread adoption of the Gutenberg moveable-type printing press allowed an explosion of information exchange across Europe in the 1400s, the internet provided a new format for the exchange of information on a scale like never before.
In the early 2000s, Hastings turned her hand to HTML coding and learned how to use Macromedia Flash for interactive material – building and maintaining websites to encourage identification of species or to understand the anatomy of flies. The rapid advance of technology in the span of one person’s career is remarkable, and seemingly a trend that shows no sign of slowing down. “It was an opportunity to keep learning, which is what makes anything interesting,” Hastings says. “I don’t think I would have lasted in the job if it hadn’t changed.”
Into the third dimension
The extension of digital art into 3D modelling and animation in the scientific illustration field is a natural progression, especially considering the increased popularity and accessibility of 3D modelling and printing software. Award-winning Australian illustrator and fellow Natural History Illustration graduate Rachel Klyve has been pioneering 3D modelling to create highly-accurate digital versions of plant and animal species, primarily those of significance to Australia’s biosecurity.
Weeds, especially ones not yet in Australia or a particular part of the country, can be difficult to access for study as they pose a high risk to Australian agriculture and native landscapes. Rachel creates models of key weed species to provide resources for improved identification, as well as increase broader awareness of these weeds.
“The models are created to scale,” she explains. “They’re interactive, so viewers can rotate the plant to look at it from all angles and zoom in to diagnostic features.”
Beyond biosecurity concerns, access to specimens for study can be impacted by factors such as scarcity, or, simply, it being the wrong season to observe the species. By interacting with a 3D model, those learning about the species can inspect minute details in a way that is second only to holding a specimen itself.
“Because of advances in digital 3D software and online viewers I have a career that wasn’t possible a few years ago when I trained in scientific illustration,” Rachel says. “I am proud that my work is used daily by biosecurity professionals who report it helps them do their job well. It’s art and science joining for practical outcomes.”
In the shadow of AI
In the past couple of years, the next technological threshold for illustrators has made itself abundantly clear. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an overwhelming presence online, in the news, and in the scientific community.
Whilst the capabilities of AI holds incredible potential – especially for processing complex calculations such as the prediction of novel protein structures – the application of AI to image making has been contentious and keenly felt amongst artists, from character designers to, of course, natural history illustrators trying to encourage scientific literacy in those around us.
Copyright infringement has always been a risk to artists, especially online, usually in the form of theft of a particular artwork to sell on merchandise. Now, swathes of artistic content on the internet can be scraped for data to train AI models – which, in Australia at least, is an infringement through reproducing an artwork digitally without consent, with no current legal exceptions for using images for machine learning.
Even with my comparatively small online presence, I have no doubt my art is already in training sets somewhere, but I continue to use social media and the internet to promote my work because I don’t yet have the industry reach or clientele base to do without – and many others are in the same situation. In a globally connected world, artists rely on the internet for opportunities and marketing: benefits which must now be balanced with the risk of wide scale infringement.
For the moment, scientific illustration careers are relatively safe from the impact of generative AI, even though it can produce images in mere seconds at little to no cost. The key value of scientific illustration lies in its accuracy, and the lengths to which we go to ensure this – consulting with scientists and undertaking careful research so that what we depict is factually correct, and easy to understand.
Those who value accuracy understand that the work involved in creating carefully researched and deliberated images requires an expert to be achieved.
Therein lies the other major moral dilemma in the use of AI, which is already seeing ramifications – its ability to create compelling disinformation. This is often pretty inoffensive, like social media accounts getting thousands of likes for pictures of bird species that don’t exist.
But it can also have life-threatening consequences. Recently, serious concerns have been raised about AI generated mushroom field guides. Reportedly, people have been poisoned eating mushrooms they believed, based on these books, to be safe. An AI is not a trained mycologist, but it can create content that looks and sounds very convincing.
Many illustrators, including myself, are somewhat anxious about this technological advance and where it may lead – even though it also holds incredible potential. As with the digital and internet revolutions Hastings experienced in her career, I do wonder how great and lasting an impact AI will have on mine – only time will tell how it will change the niche and availability of work.
The most critical aspect of scientific illustration is that it continues to be informed by real science, and along the way it will naturally be influenced by new research outcomes and scientific methods, formats for outreach, or media for the production of work. Ultimately, we, the illustrators, uphold a commitment to accuracy, champion the need for careful observation and delight in outreach and the communication of scientific information – these will always be necessary skills, the technologies involved might just change a little.
This AI generated image created a furore when it appeared in a paper published in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.
“The figure in the retracted article is so comically bad that its publication does not contribute to the important debate on the more widespread and subtle use of AI in publishing,” says Dr Frederick Fenter, Chief Executive Editor for Frontiers. “The figure was published due to a control error in the final production stages, after the authors added this image to the manuscript following completed peer review. Needless to say, it was rapidly retracted.”
This incident paints an uncertain future for scientific illustration. Obviously, at least some researchers are happy to include highly inaccurate diagrams, and some publishers will fail to catch them before publication. But equally, many researchers strongly value the rigour and clarity that scientific illustration provides.
Artificial intelligence and image generators, now that they have so quickly come to the forefront of technology and the public eye, are certainly not something that can be put back in the box. The speed with which it has been adopted by search engines, social media platforms, and operating systems is making it increasingly difficult to avoid, and the more it’s used and training models are refined, the more difficult it will become to assess whether an image or video is accurate, or true. Some kind of equilibrium will need to be struck with the technology to improve environmental impact and address the legalities of copyrighted images in training sets, and until then, responsible use is in the hands of the users.
Bonnie Koopmans is a freelance scientific illustrator and natural history artist. Her story on subantarctic birds appeared in Cosmos 105
